Recorded Webinar

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jacqueline Ferras: Welcome everyone and thank you so much for being here. My name is Jacqueline and I'm going to be your producer for today's session. If you have any questions, let me know in the chat.

[00:00:08] Damian Wisniewski: Good morning for everyone on the West Coast. Afternoon, for you crazy East Coasters.

[00:00:12] Damian Wisniewski: I'm Damian Wisniewski, Head of Sales and Marketing here at PILOT. And I'm excited to introduce today, Jeff Wahlberg, one of our Strategic Account Execs here at PILOT.

[00:00:22] Damian Wisniewski: So let me let me talk just a little bit about PILOT. as we kick ourselves off. So PILOT was founded to help everyone feel powerful at work. We show participants how to use self reflection, solicit and accept feedback, advocate for themselves, and take effective action in their organizations.

[00:00:41] Damian Wisniewski: This is done through four methods of learning. Technology enabled group coaching, where participants are broken into groups or cohorts to begin their PILOT development journey. Individual reflection exercises that can be done asynchronously on their time and on any device, executive fireside chats which give participants [00:01:00] access to higher level executives to learn the unwritten rules of work, and one on one future focused manager feedback sessions, where both manager and employee focus on development objectives and aspirations, separate from any performance conversations.

[00:01:15] Damian Wisniewski: Here at PILOT folks like Jeff talk to a lot of HR, L&D DE& I professionals, and we love to share what we've learned with a broader audience like you all today. Jeff and I sat down and talked about some of the key themes he's seen in his conversations over the last several months.

[00:01:33] Damian Wisniewski: He's going to talk about three of them here today. and we'll relate those to what we're doing at PILOT and how we can make you all successful in your roles. We'll also share some related stats and resources that you can take back to your organizations and point you to some of our previous webinars as well that we think are relevant to the topics at hand.

[00:01:55] Damian Wisniewski: So today Jacqueline, if you could bring those up. The uncertain [00:02:00] economy, which let's be honest. I think in our context here we know that's code for uncertain budgets. I know that's top of mind for everyone. So we'll talk a bit about that. Preventing attrition, which, we know is still a stressor on HR organizations.

[00:02:16] Damian Wisniewski: Even with some of the current trends we're hearing about that a lot and then fostering manager employee relationships It's a bit of an evergreen, it's especially pertinent as we're hearing about issues with a lot of the newer managers who were promoted during the pandemic.

[00:02:30] Damian Wisniewski: The first resource that I wanted to share with you today, Jacqueline is going to drop that link into the chat. So this is Ernst Young their 2023 Global Economic Outlook. Now, this is from the beginning of the year. It does seem like things are not as bad as it appeared then, but, I think it's important to keep these types of research reports in mind they are still driving the mood around budgeting conversations with the organization, even as we're looking [00:03:00] towards 2024.

[00:03:02] Damian Wisniewski: And in particular, I think the message that labor markets are tight, businesses are competing for, reduced talent pool, compensation costs are still up for some of those roles where people are struggling to find the right talent. And while there's hope that a labor market rebalancing is coming there's still a lot of tightness.

[00:03:20] Damian Wisniewski: So Jeff, is this similar to what you've been hearing?

[00:03:24] Jeff Walburg: Yeah, it is. And I feel like in some ways it's not. These are familiar things that whether it's been in the last 12 months or 18 months, they're familiar, but in some way it's new and it's different right now. And I think just like when you've got this economic environment of, high inflation, which is now coming down, but still rates that are high.

[00:03:44] Jeff Walburg: And some industries doing really well and others not, at the very least it's dynamic in a very unique way. So even if you're in an industry that is not seeing negative impacts, especially from the economic climate, it's still leaving a lot of uncertainty. So what I hear a [00:04:00] lot is HR practitioners and talent leaders saying, Hey, my VP of finance, my CFO or FP and a team is saying we have to be super efficient with our spending and whatever we invest in has to show real business value.

[00:04:16] Jeff Walburg: Not that they don't always have to do those things, but I think the bar for investing in talent programs is being increasingly scrutinized.

[00:04:26] Damian Wisniewski: Yeah.

[00:04:28] Jeff Walburg: And it's just like HR leaders are now grappling with like, all right, how do you develop and engage your workforce in this environment of certainty, dynamic economic conditions, limited talent supply, and you've really got to do more with less.

[00:04:41] Jeff Walburg: It's very unique right now.

[00:04:43] Damian Wisniewski: I think in particular asking about budget seems like something that's come up as like much more delicate than it has been in years past. But at the same time it's so crucial to be able to do. So I'd love to take us to our first poll while people think about that are you [00:05:00] prepared to ask for budget and resources during this uncertain time? The first poll is popping up. While you think about your options there Jeff, talk a little bit about some of the ways that PILOT can help activate employees even in an uncertain economy.

[00:05:14] Jeff Walburg: Yeah. One of the things that PILOT is unique is that it covers a lot of what most HR leaders want to create, but maybe don't have the budget to create or develop or to do internally, or they too often take a really long time to buy or to build or to implement. And PILOT, like you walked through, we've got these four, four modalities for engagement, and it's really meant to be.

[00:05:41] Jeff Walburg: Like what's the 80 20 of what every employee needs across a range of roles from individual contributors to senior leaders to really reflect what happens in a typical coaching relationship. So you're meeting with a coach on a monthly basis in a group setting. Then you're spending time in individual [00:06:00] reflection focused on specific topics that are again the 80 20 of what every employee needs.

[00:06:05] Jeff Walburg: And then you're engaging with your manager for development conversations and future feedback. and then bringing in senior leadership who can act as mentors at scale through what we call executive firesides. So it's really these four core experiences that reflect what a lot of HR leaders want to deliver, but often just don't have the budget to or the ability to build on their own or implement them.

[00:06:25] Damian Wisniewski: And actually, while the poll results are coming up feel free to add to the chat as well. A little more color. What are their concerns? Are you seeing pushback? What's happening as you go into this budget season? The poll results are in, so it looks like, most people are saying they can, they want some guidance.

[00:06:43] Damian Wisniewski: But actually a, quite a large percentage of you, 31 percent are saying you're not prepared to ask for budget and resources. So I think that's a big problem, right? Because folks on this call have important jobs, they have teams relying on them, there's a lot of development and, other types of initiatives that need to [00:07:00] happen even during this time.

[00:07:01] Damian Wisniewski: And it's important to think about, about, how you can build a case for yourself and, make sure that as you think about 2024, that you really are setting your organizations up for success. And so part of that I did want to share with you a webinar that we did earlier this year with the diversity movement Donald Thompson and our own CEO, Ben Brooks.

[00:07:21] Damian Wisniewski: So you get two CEOs for the price of one smart strategies to get HR initiatives approved. We have the link there in the chat. You can also use our little QR code if you're more tech enabled than I am. But I think it's worth watching. It's available right from the PILOT website.

[00:07:39] Damian Wisniewski: Take a look if you have concerns around getting your own budget approved cause I think. There's a lot, riding on your shoulders and I want to make sure that the folks on this call have some more firepower as they think about going into this upcoming budgeting season. Okay, so next attrition, right?

[00:07:58] Damian Wisniewski: And I think you know, as we think about [00:08:00] unwanted attrition there's a few resources that we wanted to share in part, just taking folks through the trend, because there's just been a lot of up and down over the last couple of years. We have a, we have the Bureau of Labor Statistics report from 2021.

[00:08:15] Damian Wisniewski: That was like. the crazy time, right? 33 percent increase in voluntary attrition. 2022 from Gartner, which was another 20%. But actually I think what people tend to be most surprised about now, these are results from 2019. But the Gallup survey that we have linked here at the bottom Just the astonishing cost of employee turnover, which even in 2019 was costing U.S. businesses roughly a trillion, and I think the most important thing as we think about that is, Gallup actually went through and calculated a cost of anywhere from, to get to the, on the way to the one trillion was that employee turnover So it costs anywhere between 50 percent and 200 percent of an annual [00:09:00] compensation to replace an employee with the higher percentage rates actually more for the execs and leaders and the most highly compensated individuals in the organization.

[00:09:11] Damian Wisniewski: So, It's a surprisingly high cost and it can be difficult to measure and so I think it's really important as you think about, making the case within your organizations to help prevent attrition to keep some of those things in mind. Jeff, what about you? Is this something you've been hearing about?

[00:09:29] Jeff Walburg: I have. And again it's not necessarily a new topic. Like you said already, it's like an evergreen challenge. But again, with a mix of industries that are seeing, higher layoffs and some that are not the reality is that a majority of whatever industry or type of organization that you're a part of, you're still dealing with, record low unemployment.

[00:09:49] Jeff Walburg: And so from both those perspectives, developing and retaining top talent is like I hear on a regular basis. Hey, like our CEO is saying of all our [00:10:00] strategic initiatives, retaining our top talent is the most important. And that's, it's always been a challenge for HR leaders. But again, I think the economic climate, the current conditions are really exaggerating that and making it seem not bigger than it always has been, but it's making it exceptionally difficult.

[00:10:20] Damian Wisniewski: Absolutely. So we're going to give for our next poll here, I think we can softball a little bit. Although I'm actually interested to see because people have lots of opinions on this. So, if you could invest money to save employees and turnover costs, would you do it? I'm very interested to see the results here. I think this is a thing that sounds good on its face. Sometimes you get deep into it and there might be more to it than it looks. So, interested to see what people have to say here.

[00:10:46] Damian Wisniewski: While you're locking in your selections Jeff, how can PILOT help stem the rate of voluntary turnover?

[00:10:53] Jeff Walburg: Yeah, the components that we've talked about already that are part of PILOT's program are intentionally included [00:11:00] because they specifically address some of the most common issues related to attrition where employees feel like, Hey, there's no development opportunities for me.

[00:11:08] Jeff Walburg: And that may look like development in their role may not be that they get a promotion or they get paid more. It may be that they feel or are taking on more responsibility in their current role. And then closely related to that is that their manager is engaged with their own development. And not only do we include these experiences as a part of the program, and even when you think about it, it's executive firesides, when you bring in senior leaders so that employees can look at the leadership of the organization.

[00:11:36] Jeff Walburg: And here a vulnerable and relatable experience of how they got to their role like the unwritten rules of work it really helps employees see. All right, like I could see myself in that role in the future because I've now gotten to know some of our senior leaders in a way that I never have. And then, of course, you need to be able to tie it back to can we track the change over time?

[00:11:56] Jeff Walburg: Can we prove that the program is having an [00:12:00] impact on employees intent to stay, on employees engagement with their manager, on their development goals? And so those are some of the specific metrics that we track within PILOT so that not only as HR and talent leaders you can look at your programs and seeing the impact that they're delivering, you can go to your executive team and say, Look, we've made an investment here and we're proving over time that this is having a meaningful impact on retaining our top talent.

[00:12:24] Damian Wisniewski: We have the poll results here and what's interesting to me, so 71 percent said depends on the initiative, which actually, sometimes we get more like sounds too good to be true. So I do like to see the the depends on the initiatives.

[00:12:35] Damian Wisniewski: One of the things that we do like to do at PILOT is to present a lot of data. Both quantitative and qualitative data back to the companies that participate in the PILOT program and, it's interesting. What we hear is there's kind of a pendulum between people get very into the qualitative and then that starts to work and then it's like, no, where's the numbers?

[00:12:55] Damian Wisniewski: And then it goes to the numbers and it's like, no, but tell me the stories. Right. And so I think that [00:13:00] when you think about proving out the value and in this case, even with preventing turnover you know it's hard to, it can be hard to make that case right and so I think as you think about planning for some of these initiatives.

[00:13:15] Damian Wisniewski: It's good to think about how are you going to prove it out, and what are you going to use data are you going to use, anecdotes from program participants etc. And just think a little bit about how do you prove out the value at the end because, it's always easy for some to say like how do you prove that someone would have quit without going through this program it's a like it's a good thing to think ahead of time.

[00:13:38] Damian Wisniewski: Okay sorry, I went on a little long about that, but that's, it's a topic that's come up a lot with our customer base recently, and so I think, one of the things I'm still, I was just really struck by that quantitative, qualitative, quantitative, qualitative dance, and so it's really worth, thinking through as you develop new programs, how am I going to justify this moving forward?

[00:13:59] Damian Wisniewski: And, part of [00:14:00] this so this is why I did want to make sure that we shared this resource with you, which is how to justify the cost of employee development. It's a it's a webinar we did earlier this year. But I think just on that broader theme as well, like really think through ahead of time, not only. Am I excited about the program? Do I think it's going to work? But how am I going to prove it afterwards? It's important to close the loop on that.

[00:14:22] Damian Wisniewski: Okay. So one final topic and as we think about managers and employees. So regular and effective manager employee conversations about both, performance and development tremendously important to the employee experience. When it comes to engagement, inclusiveness, belonging, value, satisfaction I think, managers, especially newer managers want, and actually, need help having conversations with employees on career advancement professional growth. I think back to my first management gig, I was dumped in headfirst, 12 direct reports, like no, no [00:15:00] training on like any of these conversations right in a very high growth environment. And it's not surprising to me that a lot of companies that grew significantly during the pandemic in kind of a emergency fashion a lot of new people got promoted without a lot of help or support when it comes to having these conversations.

[00:15:20] Damian Wisniewski: And it's not surprising that we see this coming up over and over and over again with our conversations With, PILOT's customers. So final resource I wanted to send you home with, it's a BetterWorks research report. You can find it here in the chat and, it really just helps you, helps talk about, and it helps people think through some of the gaps here, right?

[00:15:43] Damian Wisniewski: And I think, when 46 percent of managers don't feel confident coaching for career development, that's a real issue for your entire organization, because, that's how they got there, right? Someone helped develop them [00:16:00] or, they just figured it out on their own, right?

[00:16:02] Damian Wisniewski: But just think about what a big gap that is within your own talent development environment. So along those lines Jeff, what are, what have you been hearing?

[00:16:12] Jeff Walburg: Yeah, you hit on it where it's, and this one to me is a little bit more unique, were related to the pandemic. You have organizations, and I hear this almost ver verbatim, Hey Covid drove our growth really fast.

[00:16:28] Jeff Walburg: We had lots of change. With that there's like the great reshuffle and the great resignation. So there's a lot of movement within organizations as well as a lot of growth. Which led to this really fast upward mo movement for a lot of individuals. So they went from an IC to a manager, with 12 direct reports, but the training development just has not caught up.

[00:16:50] Jeff Walburg: And still has not cut up. And good managers, as probably most HR practitioners and talent leaders know, good managers have always had a really high value in most [00:17:00] organizations. The age old kind of phrase is like people join organizations, but they leave managers. Yeah. But that now when you've got a lot of these new managers who have not had the development and training that maybe they grew up or came up under it's having a really meaningful impact.

[00:17:16] Jeff Walburg: And so I hear a lot of, hey, we're being really, we're being asked to develop our managers , in collaboration with individual contributors, but due to the current economic conditions or due to the growth that we've had, it really, it can't be super labor intensive, right? We can't be taking managers out for two to three hours a week to focus on their development.

[00:17:37] Jeff Walburg: It needs to be something that fits within the flow of their work and that dovetails into maybe initiatives or programs that they already have, which specifically with PILOT, that's where You know, maybe you're doing performance reviews and that's why we, with our manager feedback component, it's very specifically and intentionally future focused development, which often dovetails really nicely with performance [00:18:00] reviews.

[00:18:00] Jeff Walburg: It's a lot of times it's like, how do you get over that hurdle? of helping managers learn how to have development conversations with their direct reports. And then we focus on competencies for core career competencies that are relevant and really needed for any manager to be successful where they have to learn to, Be self aware.

[00:18:19] Jeff Walburg: They have to learn to ask for feedback and give feedback. They need to learn to advocate for themselves and their team. And then of course, ultimately take action.

[00:18:28] It's interesting because I hear a lot of desire out there to to develop managers. Right. And, when I, we say managers, that might be directors.

[00:18:36] Damian Wisniewski: Sometimes that's like VPs, right? It's amazing how far up, sometimes there's this feeling that people aren't getting the management leadership that they need. And what I think is most exciting about PILOT is that. We're actually best when it's well, why don't we train up the, your employees to be better employees, which is really going to help with the management piece.

[00:18:58] Damian Wisniewski: And then by the way, we're going to [00:19:00] facilitate some, like some of those conversations so that you can train by doing the managers, so that like by giving them a structured way to talk to, a couple employees on their team, they're going to click in because they've already done it.

[00:19:13] Damian Wisniewski: And it's actually like a kind of backdoor way to to train up the managers while they, while they're too busy to do a full training..

[00:19:21] Jeff Walburg: It's really, it's meant to be, I'll say this a lot. It's comprehensive, right? Where if maybe you've got frontline managers who are going through PILOT's program as the full participants, well, their managers are involved with some group coaching at the beginning and the prompts and the structure to have development conversations.

[00:19:37] Jeff Walburg: And same if you've got individual contributors going through the program their managers are included in the program as well in a way that's light, but really incrementally effective.

[00:19:46] Damian Wisniewski: All right. So let's take us to the final poll. We saved the most controversial for last. So do you feel confident in your manager's abilities to facilitate high value career development conversations?

[00:19:59] Damian Wisniewski: Super [00:20:00] excited to, to see what we have here. We've we've gone deep. We've went all the way from they're strong leaders, leave us alone to it's a disaster. So Super excited to see what people have to say here. While folks are thinking about that, Jeff, anything else you want to say about how PILOT helps managers?

[00:20:17] Jeff Walburg: I'll just I'll double down again on, even some of the operational side of what the program looks like, is where, all right, rather than having a separate tool on another platform that you're asking managers to engage with, the PILOT our development conversations are delivered straight to somebody's email.

[00:20:37] Jeff Walburg: The coaching sessions happen on Zoom, so it's in their calendar invite. So it's a personalized link in your email and a reminder to have these development conversations of pre and post assessment, maybe for your direct reports for going to the program. So you're not asking your managers to go to like, Hey, they got to go through the SSO, to the HRAS, to the LMS, to access the platform, and then it's separate from their [00:21:00] performance review.

[00:21:00] Jeff Walburg: It's , hey, maybe we did the performance reviews or we're doing those quarterly or annually or on a continual basis. It's something that already happens right where they work. And, 'in the flow of work' gets thrown around a lot, but it really is like PILOT happens where employees already are in their email, in their inbox, on their phones, in their calendar.

[00:21:19] Damian Wisniewski: Before you can have a high value career development conversation, you have to have a development conversation. You know what I mean? It's just like it actually has to happen before it can even be high value. And I think these are the types of conversations that, unless they're scheduled on your behalf, that's the most important thing around performance review time is actually nagging every single manager in your organization to have that one annual conversation with their direct reports.

[00:21:45] Damian Wisniewski: So it's actually is just a scheduling challenge to get these things to even happen. Okay. Oh, this is actually pretty good. So we've got we got 18 percent strong leaders.

[00:21:53] Damian Wisniewski: That's fantastic. They're doing their best. All right. That's pretty good. Some training, not too many disasters. [00:22:00] So this is good. I think part of this is just to be honest, as I said, actually have those conversations happen. That's actually the hardest thing. And, the other thing is, have them happen separately from performance conversations.

[00:22:14] Damian Wisniewski: I think everyone's had that experience. Everyone knows the sandwich, right? It's something good, slide in the, ah, Marmite. What's the most horrible food you can think of? Marmite or I don't know. Sardines? I don't like fish. But it's like everyone's just waiting for that in the spam.

[00:22:33] Damian Wisniewski: Oh my gosh. Anyway, everyone's just waiting for that thing. And so I think that one of the things we've done here at PILOT is say, hey no, development conversations, which are forward looking, should be, like, separated from, review and performance and past looking right so that like people feel open to like just have these conversations without waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[00:22:58] Damian Wisniewski: I think it's, I think it's really [00:23:00] important. Okay, so. One final resource for us to share here. We did this alongside Bonusly. Vicky Yang is their VP of People Ops. Just really strong. This we did at the end of last year as we were helping companies prepare for 2023 and thinking about how to build stronger, more engaged teams.

[00:23:21] Damian Wisniewski: So I think just a really good resource. As I said, the link's in the chat. You can QR code it if you want, but something to have in your back pocket as you think through, how can I actually affect that employee manager relationship, which can be really hard to do from the outside, right?

[00:23:37] Damian Wisniewski: So just one more resource for you. So as we wrap up here did anything here spark any questions people had, anything they want to, hear more in depth about these topics. Anything they want to hear about PILOT feel free to put it into the chat.

[00:23:53] Jeff Walburg: Okay. I'll just call out the intent of these webinars really is to help other HR and talent leaders. [00:24:00] Maybe I feel like I'm in a unique position where I talk to HR leaders from a wide range of companies on a daily basis.

[00:24:07] Jeff Walburg: And a lot of times, HR leaders don't get that same type of exposure, maybe do from, if you're reading like what HRE is putting out or SHRM, or you're doing some training, or maybe you're going to an event or a conference and you're hearing that from other leaders. And so we really want to be a resource to help organizations understand like, Hey, what you may be facing is not unique.

[00:24:28] Jeff Walburg: And then of course we want to be able to align the challenges that you're facing, which again, are likely unique to what PILOT offers and what PILOT delivers in a way that together we create some unique value for your organization with the way that we. We customize and we craft and fine tune PILOT to uniquely impact whatever your organization is going through.

[00:24:49] Jeff Walburg: So for some of those where you say, hey, like our managers are doing really great, but maybe it's your individual contributors are not. Well, that's how we then uniquely craft what PILOT does, to [00:25:00] impact what are the areas in your organization that need the most development. Where are your top initiatives? What is your CEO or your CFO saying about where we need to invest time and effort?

[00:25:11] It's a real privilege to be involved in all these conversations with such top notch professionals. And I'm hearing a lot of sort of hesitation out there in the market, just as we've mentioned before on budgeting around proving effectiveness of programs in terms of making sure that people feel supported in their careers within their organizations.

[00:25:31] Damian Wisniewski: And, it's a time where people want you to prove things that are a little, hard, hard to put your fingers on. So I think, it's just, it's fun to be able to share that with the audience here. And I think, I hope we've shared some resources that you'll find helpful.

[00:25:46] Damian Wisniewski: We will send out the recording after this event. Certainly we'd love to talk to you if you have interest in PILOTs. Jacqueline will share the link here, and then, but, I think more importantly, even [00:26:00] if you just, have, want to have a deeper discussion around your own your own L& D programs, your own DE& I programs, and, how do you think about how they fit within your organizations and the needs of your employees and how you can think about justifying the value.

[00:26:14] Damian Wisniewski: We think that would be a fun conversation to have as well. So with that, I wanted to thank everyone here for their time. As I mentioned, if you're struggling in any of these areas, we'd like to talk through ideas. If you think pilot is interesting, you wanna learn more, please don't hesitate to reach out.

[00:26:30] Damian Wisniewski: We have the link here in the chat, and you'll be able to talk to one of us about any of these issues so thanks again. Have a great Tuesday and hopefully we'll hear from you soon. Thanks everybody. Appreciate you joining us.